There are more answers and questions regarding the disappearance of a NJ woman from a cruise ship. The Norwegian Cruise Line company said surveillance videos show 46-year-old Mindy Jordan alone in her room and falling from her cabin's balcony, and the FBI said, "The information that we have acquired does not suggest a crime, but that is not definitive," and said it would continue with the investigation (the FBI did seize the cruise's railings). Jordan's......

While bad weather stopped the search for a New Jersey woman who disappeared from a Norwegian Dawn cruise ship off the coast of Atlantic City, the FBI is now investigating her disappearance. The ship had left NYC for Bermuda on Sunday, and the 46-year-old woman went missing around 7:50 p.m. on Sunday. The woman's mother, Louise Jordan, told a TV station her daughter's boyfriend called her from the ship, "What he told me on the......

How do you get rid of an unwanted fire truck? Simple, put it on Craigslist! That is exactly what the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corporation (GIPEC) did with an unused 1993 Pierce aerial platform truck they inherited from the Coast Guard when the city-state agency took control over Governors Island in 2003. They got over $75,000 from the East Prospect Fire Company in York County, Pennsylvania near Lancaster. That is a pretty good deal......

Luxury cruise line Cunard has many ships, but last night was the first time that its Queen Mary 2, Queen Elizabeth 2, and new Queen Victoria ships were in the "same port at the same time." And the port was the NewYork Harbor, under fireworks and gaze of the Statue of Liberty. Cunard scheduled the three ships' departures to coincide for this one time, an event two years in the planning, requiring logistics planning......

Crews are working to remove oil from Long Island shoreline that spilled into the ocean sometime on Thanksgiving Day and started washing ashore. Surfers called the Coast Guard to report "tar-like balls of oil." A number of agencies, including the Coast Guard and NY State DEP, are working on the cleanup. The spill seems to be about 500 gallons of no. 6 oil, an unrefined bunker oil, and Newsday reports the samples from the spill......

Yesterday morning, surfers contacted the Coast Guard about "tar-like balls of oil washing up" on the shoreline of Lido Beach, near Jones Beach on Long Island. The surfers said they also had oil on their wet suits. The spill seems to be about 3000 feet wide and 1500 feet long. Now the Coast Guard, working with other local, state and federal agencies, are trying to figure out where the spill is coming from as they......

Somehow, a tanker managed to strike the Ambrose Light navigation aid early Sunday morning. The Ambrose Light is a 76-foot structure that sits 12 miles southeast of Staten Island and, according to the Coast Guard, "watches over the main shipping lanes to New York Harbor." The 799-foot tanker Axel Spirit "slammed" into the light, which is usually visible for 18 miles. Now the light is not rotating and, therefore, is not reliable. A commercial pilot......

Families and friends are mourning the deaths of Robert Chacon and John Isello, two friends who died when their motorboat capsized in the Ambrose Channel Saturday night. Chacon, Isello and two other friends were on a 24-foot fishing boat when their vessel hit a tugboat's towline. All four fell into the water. Jackson and Chacon were in an air pocket, but Chacon suffered a heart attack. Jackson, who held onto Chacon's body so it would......

A motorboat crashed into a tugboat pulling a barge last night and two motorboat passengers died after the vessel overturned. The incident occurred in the Ambrose Channel, near the Verrazano Bridge. According to the Daily News, a 24-foot motorboat hit the tow line between the tugboat and barge. Apparently the tugboat's captain had warned the motorboat a number of times, but the motorboat continued on. The barge ended up hitting the motorboat and three people......

During his weekly radio address yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg proposed that Governors Island be turned into the site of a sprawling public health institute that he would bankroll with funds from his own private foundation. After the city bought the island for $1 from the federal government several years ago, the former military site and Coast Guard station has been relatively underutilized. Bloomberg's plan envisions an institute that would draw health experts from around the world......

Another noose was found Thursday afternoon - and this time, it was outside the Church Street Post Office. Um, WTF is going on? The noose was found on a lamppost, and while it was visible at street level, postal employees working on the second floor noticed it. Building management took it down. According to Newsday, there is scaffolding outside the building at 90 Church Street that "leads to the light pole, but the scaffolding is......

Yesterday morning, two Bangladeshi brothers jumped off a freighter ship that was leaving the Port of Newark, "somewhere between the Kill van Kull and Verrazano-Narrows Bridge." One brother was found, while the other is still missing. Authorities say that 27-year-old Mohammed Nayem Uddin was found by fishermen on Hoffman Island, "shivering and covered in garbage bags." The Staten Island Advance reports he was taken to the hospital for hypothermia-like conditions. Uddin did not cooperate with......

Jeffrey's Hook Lighthouse, better known to many as the Little Red Lighthouse, is located right under the George Washington Bridge, in Fort Washington Park. And the Parks Department is having the 15th Annual Little Red Lighthouse Festival today between 12PM and 5PM, with hayrides, face painting, the antics of a stiltwalker, live music, and tours of Manhattan's only lighthouse. The lighthouse was erected in 1880 and stood in Sandy Hook, NJ until 1917. In 1921,......

Will there ever be a point when there are stories about the Greenpoint oil spill cleanup, instead of stories about how big and dangerous the spill is? Representatives Anthony Weiner and Nydia Velazquez released the results of the first EPA study (first study ever after, what, 29 years!) of the Greenpoint oil spill, and they are pretty ugly. Here some excerpts from the press release: The original estimated size of the spill of 17 million......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: a possible abduction at the Mobil gas station off the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn, a suspicious death on Cornelia St. in Queens, and a pedestrian struck at Buffalo St. and Hylan Blvd. on Staten Island. The Dept. of Buildings declined to revoke permits for Donald Trump's planned 46-story Trump SoHo "hotel" on Spring St. near the Holland Tunnel. A State Bridge Task Force completed its inspection of New York's......

If you were looking at the Gothamist Newsmap, you might have noticed this alert: "Shark Sighting | Beach 108th St X Ocean Side Queens, NY | 9/1/2007 11:41 a.m." Well, we guess the sharks wanted to make an appearance before the beaches closed for the year! Swimmers were evacuated and the Parks Department closed the beach and bay (for how long, we're not sure). WNBC says the police and Coast Guard are at the......

A Brooklyn resident who went swimming in the buff off Long Beach was lost overnight until the Coast Guard found him yesterday morning. Newsday reports that Neal Mello went for a swim around 9:30PM on Saturday night. He "left his clothes, phone and wallet beside a friend, who then fell asleep on the sand near Edwards Avenue." According to authorities, when the friend awoke around 10PM, she became worried that he was still gone, so......

Yesterday afternoon, the Fire Department responded to a call about nine people, including seven children, who fell ill when carbon monoxide leaked from a boat's exhaust system. A number of adults and children were aboard the Lady V, a 39-foot cabin "miniyacht," was in Jamaica Bay, off Brooklyn. The adults were upstairs, and the children and teenagers were downstairs. The Daily News reports that one of the kids went upstairs to tell the adults that......

Yesterday, the odd news about the NYPD's arrest of three men involved with an egg-shaped submarine near the Queen Mary 2, off the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, revealed that a Brooklyn artist was behind the whole benign operation. Police Commissioner called artist Duke Riley's stunt "marine mischief," adding that the "creative craft of three adventuresome individuals" did "not pose any terrorist threat." The NY Times describes Riley's intentions:Mr. Riley’s plan was also military, in a......

Totally weird: Authorities have found a "make-shift" submarine with three men in it near the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal. WABC 7 reports that the men may have been trying to "set sail off Brooklyn." Right now, police do not believe there was anything terror-related, as a search did not reveal any suspicious materials. There were oxygen tanks, though. No charges have been filed yet. It seems like one issue is that the sub may have......

The fuel tanker, the White Sea, that ran aground near the Ambrose Channel off Coney Island and Sandy Hook, NJ, yesterday morning, is still stuck in the waters. An attempt to dislodge the 800-foot ship carrying over half a million barrels of "low-sulfur fuel oil" failed last night, so the Coast Guard began plans to "lighten" (remove) 110,000 barrels of fuel after the ship couldn't be moved. Coast Guard officials are hopeful that it......

WCBS 880 reports that an oil tanker, the White Sea, has run aground in the Ambrose Channel, which is a shipping channel south of Lower New York Bay, off Staten Island, Coney Island, Breezy Point and NJ's Sandy Hook. The Coast Guard says that there are no reports of injuries. The 800-foot tanker is carrying 455,000 gallons of "low sulfur fuel oil", none of which has spilled. The Coast Guard says "the ship's crew deployed......

A helicopter on an aerial tour of New York City crashed into the Hudson River yesterday afternoon. Luckily none of the eight people - seven passenger and a pilot - were injured. The Liberty Travel helicopter had only been in the air for a couple minutes, after leaving West 30th Street, before experiencing engine problems. According to the Post, chopper was "able to make a controlled landing then stay afloat using emergency inflatable pontoons."......

Yesterday afternoon, witnesses saw a woman throw a baby stroller or carriage into the New York Harbor off Battery Park. A witness told WCBS 2, "I looked over the railing and I saw this baby carriage floating, looked like it was collapsed. She held it over her head like she was contemplating whether she was going to do it or not. And then she tossed it over the side." Another witness who happened to......

Yesterday, WNBC's Chopper 4 captured footage of a minke whale swimming in the Gowanus Canal Bay. Minke whales are a suborder of baleen whales, which rise to the surface the way this whale does. Chopper 4 reporter Dan Rice told us, "It was hard to see the whale under water because it is so brown. But about every 60 to 90 seconds it would surface for air and dive again." He added, "Almost looked like......

If you were looking at the Gothamist Newsmap and noticed a "Water Search" in the Gowanus Canal around 22nd Street, brace yourself: Authorities were searching for a whale. According to WNBC 4, "Authorities were trying to rescue what appeared to be a whale that had wandered into Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal." Chopper 4 has footage, but it's not online yet here it is (it's kind of hilarious, the person in the chopper - perhaps Dan Rice......

Yesterday, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced that the State will sue ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Keyspan and Phelps Dodge over a 17-million-gallon oil spill in Newtown Creek that has spread underneath Greenpoint over 100 acres. The spill was detected in 1978, when a Coast Guard pilot noticed an oil plume; oil seeped underground from ExxonMobil refinery and storage operations since the 1950s. Attorney General Cuomo said:This is one of the worst environmental disasters in the......

Today on the Gothamist Newsmap: an electric shock at 10 Penn Plaza, a fall victim down a hole at Beaver and William Street, and a person stuck between train cars at 96th Street on the 2/3. A tip from Marianne, via Gothamist Contribute: "The public should not be alarmed by activity beginning tomorrow in the vicinity of the Brooklyn Bridge. Beginning tomorrow at 4:00 PM, Tuesday, January 23, and continuing on weekdays through January,......

29-year-old artist Jacob Thomas has been putting pen to paper since he was a child, planting the seeds for what would become a full-time career. Hailing from Maryland, he did a four-year stint in the Coast Guard, where his creative talents didn't go unnoticed. He was asked to paint interiors of ships and design logos and other artwork for them, which in turn helped spur his own creative impulses. After several years in Pittsburgh, he......

If you were following the Gothamist Newsmap yesterday, you would have noticed there were alerts about part of a barge at Pier 97 sinking and that some oil or fuel seemed to be leaking from it. The NY Times reports:The barge, which had been cut into two sections, had been salvaged by a private company and towed to Pier 97 near West 57th Street, which is leased by the city’s Department of Sanitation for garbage......